Kicking off an Investor Community for Self-Directed IRA & 401k Investors

A few years ago I tried something taboo in the world of Self-Directed IRA and Solo 401k companies…

I started publishing rich information on this blog.

At that time part of me was saying, “Don’t give away all your hard earned knowledge for free!” I couldn’t hear what the other part of me was saying because that paranoid part was yelling loudly.

And to my horrific amazement [gasp]… well, actually, my business didn’t implode. In fact, our new customers were always thanking us for putting REAL information on this here blog because it made it easier for them to see we were the real deal before they bought our products.

My next step in harebrained experiments is opening up our investor community.

I figure that the more that people can connect with others around the topic of Self-Directed IRA & Solo 401(k) investing… the better.

Some other companies and promoters don’t want their customers talking to each other (and for good reasons that we won’t talk about). They also don’t want prospects talking with their customers and vice versa.

Of course being the kind of reckless, feckless entrepreneur who would give away even more free information and resources… I don’t mind if you jump into my newly widely opened community over at community.nabers.com. All that I ask is that you be nice and honest while you’re in there.

Good question. It’s very interesting the questions that come to mind when envisioning self-controlled wealth strategies.

We tend to expect that all kinds of third parties are going to sneak their way into our business. It has almost become “the norm” to basically say, “Alright, how many outside parties are going to force their way into interfering with my transaction, who are they, and how do I deal with them?”

The relieving answer is: Zero. Nobody.

A participant loan from a Solo 401k involves two parties. You, as lender. And you, as borrower.

As lender you could choose to report the loan to credit bureaus. You could seek out places to publicize or file the loan with various organizations.

Of course, none of that is required. You see, when you take control of the situation, you gain the power to choose to not overcomplicate things and to not cause problems for yourself. You usually end up making choices for yourself differently than banks, brokers, and politicians make choices for you.

@Tammy – Yeah, I know. I remember back when several custodians and facilitators were interested in joining the IRA Association and we were talking about how to make this industry viable for millions of Americans. I wanted to hire a research firm to survey and report data about their customers. Things like their investment performance and their satisfaction with self-directed investing.

They all freaked out because most of their customers are losing money and dissatisfied. This is because they get all their business from scammy investment promoters and they always promote the sexiest (a.k.a. most unrealistic) investment strategies.

At any rate, I’ve worked long and hard to offer education to my customers. I’ve attracted realistic investors who generally do quite well. So I’m not afraid to open up a community for them to share their experiences with each other. This could finally make millions of people comfortable taking control of their wealth once they see that real people are doing it. Real people in a community rather than just some exceptional case study in a newspaper or magazine article.

Jeff, I appreciate your expertise and networking prowess as well as what you’ve shared on your site these past few years, but is your new community owned by Fa(r)cebook? Why do I need a Fa(r)cebook account to join it? I’d like to join and I tried to sign up, but I don’t want to have to sign up for yet another website just to participate. Please, no lecture about how I “need” to be on there to be hip. I’m busy enough.

Call me a traditionalist or even a conservative, but I’d rather be a face on my own than a face in someone else’s book. You may say I’m a (neo?)Luddite, but I’m not the only one. Thank you.

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